VIFF opener packs some star power with Reese Witherspoon and Laura Dern

Reese Witherspoon stars in Wild, which documents Cheryl Strayed’s rash decision to make a healing journey of 1,000 miles on the Pacific Crest Trail.Photo by
Anne Marie Fox

The 33rd edition of the Vancouver International Film Festival opens with a shot of star power this year, the opening-gala screening of Wild, starring Reese Witherspoon and Laura Dern in the based-on-fact story of a self-destructive woman (Witherspoon) who attempts a 1,000-mile hike along the Pacific Crest Trail.

The film is directed by Canada’s Jean-Marc Vallée, who last year steered actors Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto to best actor and best supporting actor Oscars in Dallas Buyers Club.

The festival announced this year’s gala films at a Wednesday afternoon bash in VIFF’s Vancity Theatre.

The festival, which continues with more esoteric fare of 353 films from more than 65 countries, is bouncing back nicely from the loss of a longtime venue, the Granville 7 cinemas.

Last year fingers were crossed as the festival’s centre of activity shifted eastward to the Playhouse, SFU Woodwards and International Village. The shift seemed to work, as festival-goers turned Gastown and Crosstown into their new post-film party spots.

Also announced Wednesday was the closing gala, U.S. director Damien Chazelle’s feature debut and Sundance hit Whiplash, with rising star Miles Teller as a jazz drummer driven by a relentless instructor (J.K. Simmons).

The Canadian Images gala film is the Ontario-filmed October Gale, a claustrophobic crime drama from writer-director Ruba Nadda, starring Patricia Clarkson, Scott Speedman and Tim Roth.

The Special Presentation Gala (formerly the Dragons and Tigers Gala) gets a shot of Canadian content in Japanese director Yuya Ishii’s The Vancouver Asahi, a dramatic retelling of the storied pre-Second World War team of Japanese-Canadian baseball players. The director will be at that screening with actors Satoshi Tsumabuki and Kazuya Kamenashi.

Other VIFF highlights include B.C.-raised, Toronto-based director Sturla Gunnarsson’s documentary Monsoon, which follows a disparate group of Indians through that country’s monsoon season; and Foxcatcher, the B.C. première of the buzzed-about U.S. drama starring Channing Tatum, Mark Ruffalo and Steve Carell in a based-on-fact story of murder and Olympic wrestling.

Guests at VIFF’s industry conference, running alongside the festival, include writer Craig Borten, nominated for an Oscar last year for Dallas Buyers Club; and Jay Duplass, who with his brother Mark wrote and directed the indie hit Jeff Who Lives at Home.

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